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“Oh.” They tossed their head, flicking back their hair, looking at her with a smirk. “I like them well enough. I liked when you had your mouth on them. Sometimes I’d as soon do without them. When they’re signifying something to someone that I don’t want them to signify. That’s the only problem, really, for me. I like all my bits. Just not the meanings people give to them. And you?” Their hands stilled, cupping her. “How do you feel about your breasts?”

“The opposite. I’ve never thought about breasts signifying anything. But they get in the way, so I don’t much care for them.”

“Do you mind if I care for them?” Their hands started moving again. They had calluses on their palms, from digging. The calluses scratched at her nipples, and a cry shivered out of her. “I do care for them.” Their lips were at her ears. “Very much.”

She grabbed their head and turned it, fastened her mouth to theirs. Her kiss was greedy, her tongue gliding deep. She locked her hands behind their neck. Her breasts were slippery now as the two of them pressed together, skin to skin. She felt the poke of their nipples, jaunty and taunting.

“I don’t want your nipples to mean anything,” she whispered between kisses. “I just want to bite them again.”

She pushed their shoulders hard, pushed them down, the rush of air tingling over her belly. She could see the gleam of their smile, and then she was curved over them, curtained by her hair, kissing and licking and sucking and biting, and the noises Georgie made began to throb inside her. She didn’t realize she was moving her hips, until she felt their hands clamp around them.

Panting, she straightened her spine, looking down at herself, the dark jut of her breasts, her pale, stockinged knees on either side of them.

“Am I doing this right?”

Their thumbs pressed her hip bones, and their fingers dug into the soft flesh of her backside, nudging her back into motion. “Do you like it?”

She was rocking over them, pleasure building with every stroke. Her yes was barely audible, lost between a hitch and a hiss of breath.

She tried again. “Yes.”

“I do too,” they murmured. “So it’s right. And this? What about this?” Their hand slid forward, down her belly, fingers opening the slit in her drawers, spreading her damp curls. With their other hand, they were spreading theirs, and then, God, then the slippery center of her sensation was rubbing delicate skin equally slick. She gasped and arched her back, dragging that needy wet center in slow circles, which only wound her need tighter. Their flesh was wet and soft beneath her, but also firm, with a tightly budded tip she drove herself onto, again and again.

“Oh God.” Georgie canted their hips, straining upward, and she parted her knees, moaning at the stretch in her inner thighs, sinking down.

Their head tipped back, and they yelled, hoarse and exuberant, shuddering under her, their breath gusting into a moaning laugh.

“You have killed me,” they said, rolling their head from side to side, hands sliding down her legs, the skin of her thighs, the silk of her stocking. “Now prepare to meet your fate.”

Their hands skated back up, one clamping again around her hip, the other…the other…

“Lift up.” It was a dark command. She obeyed, thigh muscles so taut they tremored. Their fingers were rubbing her now, targeting the pulse of tension at the apex of all her slick, swollen, clutching inner flesh. She fell forward, hands slapping down flat on either side of them.

“Georgie,” she gasped, or pleaded. Her body was a vessel for waves of feeling, waves that rolled on and on, from her belly down to her toes, and back, rolling without breaking. “I need you to—”

She wasn’t sure. She wanted to try anything, no, everything. Maybe everything was right. Kiss. Lick. Rub. Suck. Thrust.

Their fingers thrust inside her and began to churn, the rhythm slow and inexorable. Her heart stuttered to a stop. Her blood wasn’t moving in her veins. Everything concentrated into a single point. They thrust higher, and she burst. She burst open, liquid trickling down her thighs, a scream tearing from her throat. Her eyes were closed. Against the velvet dark, stars shot in all directions. She rolled off of them and lay on her back, stunned for several ages.

Before she could think again, the candles in the lantern had gone out.

“I can’t see if I’ve achieved the correct smile,” she complained, flinging out a hand, feeling for their face.

“You’ve given me dimples,” they said, yanking her hand from their nose, and guiding it down until…

She shrieked as their teeth closed on her fingertip and whacked them with a pillow.

“Do you think it’s still my birthday?” they asked, tucking her against them.

“You can have until dawn,” she said, head on their shoulder.

“Let’s stay up.” Their arm cradled her closer. “I want to see a shooting star.”

I already did. She almost said it, except she was beyond saying anything. Their heart was beating against her palm, and she was asleep before she understood what was happening.

26

The morning light washed the color from Elfreda’s dreams. Her eyes fluttered open. Sky, pale blue behind a lacework pattern of cloud. She was on the tower roof, warm under a quilt she vaguely remembered Georgie pulling over her when she’d woken earlier, in darkness, shivering. Georgie. She sat up. They stood at the parapet, wrapped in a sheet, gazing toward the horizon.